Entertainment
Filmsite's Greatest Films of the 50's
Greatest films of the 1950's. These are only the best movies from the 50s. For the full article go to: http://www.filmsite.org/300films.html
- 1Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, Celeste Holm
- Released: 1950
- Directed by: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Backstage story revolving around aspiring actress Eve Harrington. Tattered and forlorn, Eve shows up in the dressing room of Broadway mega-star Margo Channing, telling a melancholy life story to ...more - 2Sterling Hayden, Sam Jaffe, Marilyn Monroe
- Released: 1950
- Directed by: John Huston
Recently released from prison, Dix Handley (Sterling Hayden) concocts a plan to steal $1 million in jewels. Dix gathers a team of small-time crooks, including a safecracker (Anthony Caruso) and a ...more - 3Peggy Cummins, John Dall, Berry Kroeger
- Released: 1950
- Directed by: Joseph H. Lewis
When gun-obsessed pacifist Bart Tare (John Dall) witnesses expert shooter Annie Laurie Starr (Peggy Cummins) demonstrate her firearm prowess at a carnival one night, it's love at first sight. Aimless ...more - 4Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy
- Released: 1950
- Directed by: Nicholas Ray
Hollywood screenwriter Dixon Steele (Humphrey Bogart) and his neighbor Laurel (Gloria Grahame) are just getting to know each other romantically when the police begin questioning Dixon about his ...more - 5William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim
- Released: 1950
- Directed by: Billy Wilder
An aging silent film queen refuses to accept that her stardom has ended. She hires a young screenwriter to help set up her movie comeback. The screenwriter believes he can manipulate her, but he soon ...more - 6James Stewart, Shelley Winters, Dan Duryea
- Released: 1950
- Directed by: Anthony Mann
Lin McAdam (James Stewart) pursues notorious outlaw Henry "Dutch" Brown (Millard Mitchell) into Dodge City, Kansas. There, in an effort to flush out the criminal, McAdam enters a sharp-shooting ...more - 7Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Morley
- Released: 1951
- Directed by: John Huston
After religious spinster's (Katharine Hepburn) missionary brother is killed in WWI Africa, dissolute steamer captain (Humphrey Bogart) offers her safe passage. She's not satisfied so she persuades ...more - 8Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, Oscar Levant
- Released: 1951
- Directed by: Vincente Minnelli
Jerry Mulligan (Gene Kelly) is an American ex-GI who stays in post-war Paris to become a painter, and falls for the gamine charms of Lise Bouvier (Leslie Caron). However, his paintings come to the ...more - 9Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Shelley Winters
- Released: 1951
- Directed by: George Stevens
In this classic version of Theodore Dreiser's novel "An American Tragedy," George Eastman (Montgomery Clift), the nephew of a wealthy industrialist, is excluded from high society and given a ...more - 10Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Hugh Marlowe
- Released: 1951
- Directed by: Robert Wise
When a UFO lands in Washington, D.C., bearing a message for Earth's leaders, all of humanity stands still. Klaatu (Michael Rennie) has come on behalf of alien life who have been watching Cold War-era ...more - 11Robert Walker, Farley Granger, Ruth Roman
- Released: 1951
- Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
In Alfred Hitchcock's adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's thriller, tennis star Guy Haines (Farley Granger) is enraged by his trampy wife's refusal to finalize their divorce so he can wed senator's ...more - 12Marlon Brando, Vivien Leigh, Kim Hunter
- Released: 1951
- Directed by: Elia Kazan
Based on the play by Tennessee Williams, this renowned drama follows troubled former schoolteacher Blanche DuBois (Vivien Leigh) as she leaves small-town Mississippi and moves in with her sister, ...more - 13James Arness, Paul Frees, George Fenneman
- Released: 1951
- Directed by: Howard Hawks, Christian Nyby
The Thing from Another World is a 1951 American black-and-white science fiction/horror film produced by Howard Hawks' Winchester Pictures Corporation, released by RKO Pictures, and directed by ...more - 14Lana Turner, Kirk Douglas, Walter Pidgeon
- Released: 1952
- Directed by: Vincente Minnelli
Unscrupulous movie producer Jonathan Shields (Kirk Douglas) is a child of Hollywood who ruthlessly toils his way to the top of the studio system, discarding movie star Georgia (Lana Turner), director ...more - 15Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, Katy Jurado
- Released: 1952
- Directed by: Fred Zinnemann
Former marshal Will Kane (Gary Cooper) is preparing to leave the small town of Hadleyville, New Mexico, with his new bride, Amy (Grace Kelly), when he learns that local criminal Frank Miller has been ...more - 16John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Barry Fitzgerald
- Released: 1952
- Directed by: John Ford
After accidentally killing an opponent in the ring, boxer Sean Thornton (John Wayne) leaves America and returns to his native Ireland, hoping buy his family's homestead and live in peace. In doing ...more - 17Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, Donald O'Connor
- Released: 1952
- Directed by: Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly
A spoof of the turmoil that afflicted the movie industry in the late 1920s when movies went from silent to sound. When two silent movie stars', Don Lockwood and Lina Lamont, latest movie is made into ...more - 18Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Jocelyn Brando
- Released: 1953
- Directed by: Fritz Lang
A police officer seems to have committed suicide, but Detective Dave Bannion (Glenn Ford) thinks there's more to the story. After talking to the man's mob-connected mistress, Bannion discovers ...more - 19Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr
- Released: 1953
- Directed by: Fred Zinnemann
At an Army barracks in Hawaii in the days preceding the attack on Pearl Harbor, lone-wolf soldier and boxing champion "Prew" Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) refuses to box, preferring to play the bugle ...more - 20Gregory Peck, Audrey Hepburn, Eddie Albert
- Released: 1953
- Directed by: William Wyler
Overwhelmed by her suffocating schedule, touring European princess Ann (Audrey Hepburn) takes off for a night while in Rome. When a sedative she took from her doctor kicks in, however, she falls ...more - 21Alan Ladd, Jean Arthur, Van Heflin
- Released: 1953
- Directed by: George Stevens
Enigmatic gunslinger Shane (Alan Ladd) rides into a small Wyoming town with hopes of quietly settling down as a farmhand. Taking a job on homesteader Joe Starrett's (Van Heflin) farm, Shane is drawn ...more - 22Marlon Brando, Eva Marie Saint, Karl Malden
- Released: 1954
- Directed by: Elia Kazan
Dockworker Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) had been an up-and-coming boxer until powerful local mob boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb) persuaded him to throw a fight. When a longshoreman is murdered ...more - 23James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey
- Released: 1954
- Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
A newspaper photographer with a broken leg passes time recuperating by observing his neighbors through his window. He sees what he believes to be a murder, and decides to solve the crime himself. ...more - 24Barbra Streisand, Kris Kristofferson, Gary Busey
- Released: 1976
- Directed by: Frank Pierson
A rock star on the decline, John Norman Howard has given in to drugs and excessive drinking, and his music has suffered as a result. Wandering into a club one night, John watches singer Esther ...more - 25Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Anne Francis
- Released: 1955
- Directed by: John Sturges
When John J. Macreedy (Spencer Tracy), a one-armed war veteran, arrives in the small desert town of Black Rock, he's not greeted warmly. Searching for a man named Komoko, Macreedy is met with disdain ...more
